Plain

There have been certain groups of Christians through history, the Amish, Mennonites, some Quakers and to an extent the Puritans, who have believed in plainness of appearance. That colorful or fine clothing is a sign of unbecoming vanity. Perhaps more importantly they have believed that churches should not have ornamentation, to the extent that they have churches at all. Many such groups met in homes, not churches.

And they have a point. What is the objective, after all, of fine clothes but to promote yourself (potentially promote yourself as a sex object even) and elevate yourself above other men? What is the point of women's makeup, but that? Their objection to such things is not so much biblically based as based on common sense. Presumably the first Israelites didn't have the option of swanky threads and they never got around to having any sort of guidance about it.

The Jewish preachers of Jesus' day often took pride in quality apparel and you could actually make the argument that Jesus did too, based on his shirt that was valuable enough for them to especially note it and valuable enough for Roman soldiers to draw lots for it. You think they wanted scruffy rags off some shepherd's back? I would doubt it, but maybe they weren't paid well. Yes, sometimes evil people were depicted as being in fine clothes in the Bible, as one of the many luxuries of their wealth and power, but overall it was apparently not worthy of note. Jacob's son Joseph was noted as having his "coat of many colors" but this was more of a device to show how Joseph was the "special boy" of the family. A real Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Fine apparel is one of the many things to which the Bible kind of goes, "Meh, who cares? Knock yourself out, fancy boy." As long as there wasn't wool and linen mixed, which apparently was reserved for priestly clothing, nobody much cared. G-d had bigger fish to fry.

Despite this, I'm gonna side with the Plain People. Fine clothes are a vanity. "Look at me, I'm special." While I don't wear a black hat and longcoat without buttons, I have my own uniform that I wear every day. Black or neutral-toned shirt, drab olive or khaki pants, work boots. I dressed up once in recent history, to go to court, because I had to. Otherwise, every day, this is it. I really have better things to do than worry about how I look.

Now to weightier matters: ornamentation in churches.

Before I start in on that, I'd like to comment that there appears to be two completely different schools of thought present in the Torah relative to ritual paraphernalia. One is what you might call the "Egyptian School," represented by the Tabernacle and the golden altar and other golden religious knick-knacks. Despite being a tent, the Tabernacle was a very fancy thing indeed and also decorated with lots of images that might be interpreted as idolatrous. They needed dolphin skins to make it, how the hell did they find and skin dolphins in the desert? It was multilayered and intricately decorated and dyed. It was indeed a forerunner of the Temple in terms of its expense and beauty, and a direct descendant of Egyptian ritual arts.

And then there was the hardcore aniconic school, where you could not even use a tool on the altar or you would defile it. This is represented in Deuteronomy 27:5 and Exodus 20:25. The altar had to be made of earth or unhewn stone, any touch of human artistry or even squaring up the stone would render it unfit, because man's art has touched it.

Well, clearly the altar covered in gold in front of the Tabernacle and the altar of unhewn stone are not the same altar!

There were TWO Judaisms here, as indeed archaeological evidence and the evidence of the Tanakh itself suggests. One version was idolatry- and polytheism-friendly. YHWH was worshiped along with Asherah as consort and probably Baal and others. Descended from the rituals and religion of Egypt and Canaan. Much of the ritual furniture and indeed structure of the Tabernacle itself was taken more or less whole from Egyptian movable battle shrines that would be taken along with Egyptian armies on campaigns. There were images of deity-like beings embroidered in gold on the curtain of the Tabernacle itself! Violating the Second Commandment!

Lets face it, the World's people like a show when they go to church, then as now. So we can surmise that the religion of the masses was this Egyptian-inspired nonsense. Just as the religion of the masses today is full of rock bands and overhead projections and stained glass and finery.

But alongside that was a much more sere faith, represented in the Second Commandment and indeed in Moses' encounter at the Burning Bush. It is that one that I am interested in.

"You shall not make for yourself any graven image,
or any manner of likeness
of what is in the heavens above, or

on the Earth below, or in the waters

under the Earth. You shall not bow

down to them or serve them."

~Exodus 20:4-5


And if you make for Me an altar of stones,
do not build it of hewn stones;
for by wielding your tool upon them
you have profaned them.

~Exodus 20:22

So you see the two Judaisms, or should I say one Judaism and one mixed Egyptian-Canaanite temple culture. In one, you have all these fancy objects and an altar covered in gold and a multi-layered tent with all kinds of images sewn in inside and out.

In the other, if you even square a stone block you have profaned it.

No artistry or craft of Man is acceptable in connection to this religion period. G-d is not an item of furniture in the human sphere. Not a concept for us to pigeonhole. G-d transcends humanity. This is a fundamentally mystical conception, G-d is saying "You will not label, box, draw, categorize or name Me." What name did G-d tell Moses at the Burning Bush?

Just "I Am"

And of course throughout the Tanakh you can see ample evidence of the more pagan-friendly or even outright polytheistic version of pseudo-Judaism. In the midst of this, the believers of the purer harder faith were probably a small minority. That minority might have had their viewpoints more dominantly expressed in the Tanakh, but the Tanakh itself clearly shows that they were constantly brushing up against a polytheism-friendly majority. King Josiah might have been a great champion of this minority, but his own dad sacrificed to pagan deities. Solomon, son of David, sacrificed to pagan deities. In the Judges period, there was all kinds of idolatry. This aniconic, radically antipagan Judaism was a tiny zealous minority among Jews.

Is it not exactly the same today? In the big churches you have your stadium seating and the displays and the rock bands and the preacher dressed like a really rich and tasteful pimp and all kinds of bells and whistles. You have candles and stained glass and brass and fine furniture and, G-d help us, images of Jesus and of saints. It's exactly the same. People say it is for the glory of G-d, but it's not for the glory of G-d. G-d does not need our reflected glory, we need His glory. The fancy cathedrals and the ornate mosques, they may be beautiful works of Man's contrivance, but they have nothing to do with G-d.

Anyone who has read this far probably knows what side I come down on. All this finery, all this ritual, it's just modern paganism. The modern Christian church is pagan down to the bone. Modern Judaism in many respects is not that far behind them. These things, these churches, this stained glass, these golden cups, these fancy buildings - they have nothing to do with G-d. They were built for the glory of MEN.


Be Plain.